Templot Club Archive 2007-2020
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posted: 24 May 2011 20:48 from: Brian Nicholls
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Hi Martin, Sorry since, I have had the TDV for less than a couple of hours. The first minor problem I have noticed in the TDV is the when you go to put your background track plan on the workpad, the data entry window is hidden or, in some cases depending where you are on the screen, half hidden by the initial selection screen. To get access to the data entry, you have to move it sideways from behind the other window before you can enter any data. When you finally enter the data and click the “Enter” button, it comes back with a warning screen, “Bitmap image is not valid” as shown below. The screenshot shown immediately below, covers the data entry screen window. Also this screen ‘hogs’ your monitor, because if you leave Templot screen up and active, if you then call up and cover Templot with another application, the screen below stays irritatingly in the window of the other application, nothing else of Templot is visible at this time. To remove the screen from any other application window, you have to relegate Templot to the lower task bar, by clicking the minimize box in the top right hand corner of the window. This is contrary to how windows should work, each window should keep it’s own contents at that window level and leave nothing fixed and above to the monitor screen, when covered by another window. 1853_241542_140000000.gif  This screen is covered by the one shown above, and has to be moved to gain access. This screen also exhibits the same monitor ‘hogging’. 1853_241543_120000000.gif  When Enter is clicked in the above screen, this warning appears. 1853_241543_460000000.gif  Who knows what the next couple of hours will bring out !! All the best, Brian Nicholls. |
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posted: 24 May 2011 21:28 from: Rob Manchester
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Hi Brian, I partially agrre with what you have said. The data entry screen does appear behind the background shapes window whereas in 0.91c it appears correctly in front. I don't however get the window hogging the monitor as you describe. If another application is called up all the Templot windows stay correctly within themselves. I have WXP 32 bit on Dual core P4 4GB ram. Rob |
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posted: 24 May 2011 21:39 from: Rob Manchester
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Brian, I just tried the background shapes item again in TDV and this time I did see the same result as you report with the modal window. Minimizing Templot takes the window with it but restoreing another application doesn't. Rob |
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posted: 24 May 2011 22:01 from: Martin Wynne
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Brian Nicholls wrote: Also this screen ‘hogs’ your monitor, because if you leave Templot screen up and active, if you then call up and cover Templot with another application, the screen below stays irritatingly in the window of the other application, nothing else of Templot is visible at this time. To remove the screen from any other application window, you have to relegate Templot to the lower task bar, by clicking the minimize box in the top right hand corner of the window. Hi Brian, Firstly -- the best way to minimize Templot is to press the PAUSE key on the keyboard. It's usually at the far right of the top row of function keys. This will minimize the entire application and not just one of the windows. The data-entry dialog shown above has remained virtually unchanged since the time I wrote it about 15 years ago. There are lots of things wrong with it. Apart from sometimes "hogging the monitor" as you describe, it also hogs processor time and causes laptop cooling fans to come on. All these things are exactly the same in 091c and all previous versions. It needs a complete re-write, but it's a very complex dialog and I just have to draw a line somewhere if the next Pug is ever going to be released. This will have to remain as it is for now. Please don't tell me that this is not how Windows programs work.  I did already know that, and if I didn't, I've been told often enough!I changed the background shapes dialog to StayOnTop but I have already realised that it causes problems by obscuring the data-entry dialog and I have changed it back. I'm a bit puzzled by your invalid bitmap, but I see that it's shown as *.png in the shapes list on your screenshot, which suggests that you didn't actually select a file before closing the File dialog. That should have produced a different error message, so I will look into it. regards, Martin. |
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posted: 24 May 2011 23:20 from: Brian Nicholls
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Rob Manchester wrote: I just tried the background shapes item again in TDV and this time I did see the same result as you report with the modal window. Minimizing Templot takes the window with it but restoring another application doesn't.Hi Rob, Many thanks for the backup feedback. In my case, no matter what other application I called up, if I had Templot opened behind that application, the background shapes window stayed prominently in the front on my monitor. The only way I could remove that window, was as I described, by minimizing the main Templot window. Thanks again. All the best, Brian Nicholls. |
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posted: 24 May 2011 23:41 from: Martin Wynne
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Hi Brian, Can you say a bit more about the invalid bitmap issue, as I'm really more concerned about that than the window staying on top. That's a simple FormStyle setting which I can change at any time, and have already done so. But the bitmap issue could be serious. Can you recall the exact sequence of events? Thanks. regards, Martin. |
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posted: 25 May 2011 00:11 from: Brian Nicholls
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Hi Martin, First an apology for teaching you to suck eggs, as the saying goes, regarding the windows working bit. Also I may need to apologise for some miss-information in my posting.  When I stated the following: “When Enter is clicked in the above screen, this warning appears”. This was not quite true, I realised after the posting, when I clicked the enter button, that I had actually had the shapes folder selection screen open as shown below Figure 1. It was when I made my selection of my plan, and clicked on the ‘open’ button of that screen, that I then got the warning message screen. I have tried this all again and got exactly the same result, however, I noticed this time, that when I clicked on the enter button of the data enter screen, as the shape folder screen opened, the *. png suddenly came up in the initial background shape screen where previously this was blank as shown below Figure 2. Figure 1. 1853_241903_240000000.gif  Figure 2. 1853_241904_270000000.gif  It would seem, that because the *.png has been by default, put into the picture selection area, I cannot get past the shapes folder screen and put my bitmap background track plan in place. I will have to investigate this further tomorrow afternoon. All the best, Brian Nicholls. |
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posted: 25 May 2011 09:06 from: Martin Wynne
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Hi Brian, My apologies -- *.png is correct. It is used in the shapes list as a place-holder while the Windows File dialog is displayed. I can see it in the code, and why it's there, and the only one who can have put it there is me. But I honestly have no recollection of doing so. This is becoming a problem for me. 20 years ago I was able to keep most of Templot in my head. But nowadays the grey cells are dying off so fast that it's sometimes difficult to remember what I did two weeks ago, let alone two years.  I see from your screenshot that you have Windows set not to show file extensions. I know that's the Windows default, but it always seems extremely inconvenient to me. So I can only assume that those files are BMP files, based on the icon. So I've been testing TDV with large BMP files of 50MB and more, up to 8000 x 4000 pixels, in various colour depths. And so far I have been unable to break it or produce the error message you found. The problem may be related to the available graphics memory on your system, or the files may be faulty in some way. Can you say a bit more about them? Have you been using them on the same system in 091c? What other graphics software did you have running at the same time? If you still can't get them to load, please try editing them in a graphics program such as PaintShopPro and saving them in PNG format instead. This is now the preferred format for picture shape image files in TDV. Also, it is no longer necessary to put them in the SHAPE-FILES folder, you can save them on your computer where you normally save such image files, or anywhere you wish. After loading them into a picture shape, TDV keeps its own copy of them in SK8 format. But there is clearly a bug in TDV, because you now have 5 empty background shapes showing in the list, which appear to be zero-length lines. I need to look into that. Shapes should be given a default name, and zero-size shapes serve no purpose and should be flagged up to the user. Thanks again for reporting this.  regards, Martin. |
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posted: 25 May 2011 14:55 from: Brian Nicholls
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Hi Martin, Sorry could not stay on line longer last night, I had a early morning hospital appointment for a post op assessment for an operation I had very recently. However, some good news for you, just a short while ago, I got home and switched my PC on and started checking things again. The first thing I did was to run Internet Explorer and read my emails. I then opened Templot Club and read your latest posting on our little problem. So, I then ran Templot 0.91c and the first thing was to load in the same file that was in the TDV shapes folder I tried loading into the TDV yesterday, as I expected, the bitmap file loaded perfectly. I then quit and closed 0.91c and ran TDV, I then did exactly the same, using the same procedure, and loaded the bitmap file from yesterday. Well to my great surprise, it loaded perfectly OK. Now the factors that may have changed from yesterday’s attempts were: 1. Prior to closing down the TDV last night I kept looking around the open background shapes start window, and found that I could and did clear out all the unwanted blank empty background shapes, and finally ended up with the screenshot shown below. I did not do anything else to this window and then closed the TDV for the night. 2. Today, I had no other applications running, except Internet Explorer and my emails page and Templot Club open. And as stated above, the background bitmap file loaded perfectly OK in the TDV. Just to be sure about all this, I then tried to do the same again, load the bitmap file, but this time I had several other applications running. I had, as above, Internet Explorer and my emails page and Templot Club, in addition I also had running, Paint, Photoshop CS4, Ms Word 2003, and a single folder. This time, I had the same result as last evening, the file would not load and I got the warning window come up. I then closed Photoshop CS4 and tried again, the same result, the file would not load and the warning came up. I then closed Paint and tried again, the same result, the file would not load and the warning came up. I then closed MS Word 2003 and tried again, the same result, the file would not load and the warning came up. This only left the single folder, so I closed that, which left only Internet Explorer and my emails page and Templot Club as before when I first tried, again the same result, the file would not load and the warning came up. In all the above attempts, I did not close and restart the TDV, so I thought I would give that a try. I closed and then after a short delay, re-opened the TDV, and tried loading the bitmap file again, this time it loaded perfectly OK again, with Just these other applications running. Internet Explorer and my emails page and Templot Club. I now thought I should take this a stage further, and brought back all the other applications I had been running, Paint, Photoshop CS4, Ms Word 2003, and a single folder. I now closed the TDV, and again after a short delay, re-opened the TDV and tried loading the bitmap file again, this time it loaded perfectly OK again, with all the other applications running. My conclusion is from the above test results is, Once you fail to load the bitmap file it seems to lock up in that state, and you need to close TDV and then after a short delay re-open it again from scratch to get rid of the lock up condition. However, what causes the failure to load in the first instance is a bit of a mystery, It may be as you suspect Martin, something in my system and a combination of what is running at the time. At least now I have found the condition in which I can recover and load my bitmap file when required, albeit having to first shut down the TDV. As a footnote to this, I never have had anything like this problem with 0.91c once I realised what was happening about the Zoom problem a short while ago. BTW, my bitmap file is 420 MB 18388 x 8002, all copies of this file are in good shape and in no way faulty, I can open then in Photoshop and Windows Picture and Fax viewer perfectly OK, not to mention Templot 0.91c. I hope all this helps Martin. All the best, Brian Nicholls. 1853_250951_260000000.gif  |
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posted: 25 May 2011 15:46 from: Brian Nicholls
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Hi Martin, It’ me again, (my brain cells are also diminishing ), I just wanted to make sure that I had made it quite clear in my last posting just above, the following:Not only do you need to restart the TDV before you load the bitmap files, but you must also ensure that there are no unwanted blank empty background shapes in the first screen window when opening background shapes in the main menu. If when you first open this window (or Box call it what you will), if there are any files showing (empty or otherwise) then you must delete these first and have a completely empty (nothing there, except the wording confirming there are no shapes) window as shown in the screen shot in the last posting, otherwise when you try to load the file you want, it will fail to load and you will get the warning box. Just thought I better make that crystal clear. All the best, Brian Nicholls. |
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posted: 25 May 2011 15:51 from: Martin Wynne
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Brian Nicholls wrote:BTW, my bitmap file is 420 MB 18388 x 8002, all copies of this file are in good shape and in no way faulty, I can open then in Photoshop and Windows Picture and Fax viewer perfectly OK, not to mention Templot 0.91c.Hi Brian, Many thanks for the detailed report. 420MB !!! I can't remember anyone using such a massive file as a picture shape. That must be using up a fair chunk of your entire graphics memory. I'm surprised you haven't had more trouble with such a big file. I would strongly recommend that you close all other significant applications before loading such a file into Templot. Especially Microsoft applications such as Internet Explorer and Word. A better solution would be to split this file into sections, and have say 15 picture shapes in a 5 x 3 grid, each 3678 x 2667. They will still be 28MB each, which I would normally regard as large, and each approximately equivalent to scanning a full A4 page at 300dpi. Then load the image only for the section on which you are working, or maybe a few adjacent sections. The panning and zooming speeds will be very much improved. For the other picture shapes at present you can click the picture content: > reload button and temporarily load a small place-holder image. In 091c you could clear a picture shape by clicking cancel on the reload dialog, but that was non-intuitive and I have now changed it. Instead I will add a clear button in TDV, if I can find room for it. Thanks for drawing my attention to the need for it. regards, Martin. |
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